Oakland police officers are stopping roughly 75 percent fewer drivers and pedestrians this year than they did just three years ago, a steep drop in enforcement that comes amid a crime spike in one of the state's most dangerous cities.

The figures on police stops include when officers pull over a car, arrest or detain someone on the street, or contact a person who agrees to answer questions about an investigation.

Oakland officers made more than 68,000 such stops in both 2008 and 2009. That's when a sharp decline began, yielding about 49,000 stops in 2010 and 25,000 in 2011, according to statistics the department released to The Chronicle.

Through November of this year, there were 14,400 stops, meaning the department is on pace to make 15,733 stops this year - or an average of 43 stops a day, compared with 188 three years ago.

"Many, many street stops are intended not to lead to arrests but to discourage or thwart crime that's about to happen," he added. "What the police do most effectively is to prevent and discourage."

The Oakland numbers are a gauge of an agency trying to address the state's highest crime rate while dealing with job cuts, low morale and a set of departmental reforms demanded by a federal court - reforms that include strict guidelines on making stops.

The free fall in stops raises questions about the city's strategy in coping with the diminished resources that came with the economic crisis. Due to the layoffs of 80 officers in June 2010 as well as attrition, the Oakland force has 626 officers, a 25 percent decline from a high of 837 in December 2008.

Special squads cut

Sgt. Chris Bolton, chief of staff to Police Chief Howard Jordan, said reducing the size of the force meant elimination of several specialty squads whose officers had been free from responding to emergency calls and could focus on specific tasks.

Stops were the "bread and butter" of units devoted to busting drug dealers, gang members and people with illegal guns, Bolton said. In addition, a pair of six-member motorcycle squads that focused on traffic enforcement were disbanded by early 2010.

Bolton estimated that motorcycle officers averaged 15 stops per 10-hour shift, but did not provide hard data. Their absence, he said, may account for much of the decrease in stops.

"When you don't have officers tied to calls for service, and you have that freedom to move around the city ... those officers are more productive in terms of arrests and detentions," Bolton said.

Vehicle and pedestrian stops are a basic component of police work and the centerpiece of crime-reduction strategies in many cities, including New York.

In a bid to help Oakland, the California Highway Patrol began pulling drivers over in Oakland last month. As of Saturday, CHP officers had made 917 stops and arrested 159 people, an agency spokesman said.

But stops are distinctly complicated in Oakland.

Under court-ordered reforms that began a decade ago after a police brutality scandal, Oakland officers must complete a separate report on every person they stop, noting why the stop was made and its outcome, as well as the subject's apparent race and gender.

Reports can take 10 minutes

Some veteran officers said stops were down in part due to the paperwork involved, with each report taking up to 10 minutes.

They said cops were also afraid of making stops that might generate a complaint - and potential discipline from police leaders who are under pressure from the courts to show they can control officers' conduct.

"The policies become so restrictive that police work isn't possible," said one officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "You have to do everything you can just to keep your job safe, so why would you risk going out and being proactive?"

His view was shared by other officers interviewed by The Chronicle, but none would agree to be publicly identified.

John Burris, one of the civil rights attorneys whose lawsuit prompted court oversight, said it should not hinder officers from targeting criminals. He said the data suggested that officers "aren't doing their jobs" and that their superiors had failed to communicate the importance of the reforms.

Bolton said compliance with the reforms requires documentation that the city is committed to gathering and reviewing. Disengaging from police work "is not an acceptable solution," he said.

The stop numbers are not the only indicator of trouble within the Oakland force.

The Chronicle reported earlier this month that arrests in Oakland were down 44 percent from 2008 to 2011, a drop so severe that it has been felt in the county's court and jail systems.

Meanwhile, the solve rate for killings has been below 30 percent for the past three years, compared with a national average of 65 percent.

These trends preceded citywide increases in crime, which is up in 2012 for the second year in a row. Major crimes like robbery and burglary are up 23 percent this year, and Oakland suffered its 121st homicide of the year on Tuesday night.

Carl Chan, who owns a real estate business in Chinatown and chairs the neighborhood's crime prevention council, said the reduction in stops "doesn't make me feel comfortable at all."

"If criminals are aware of this, that means they have the upper hand," he said, "and citizens have a higher risk of becoming victims. ... You want to do prevention instead of waiting until something really happens."

City Council members Libby Schaaf and Larry Reid recently proposed spending $1.8 million to speed up the planned hiring of police officers, hire 20 civilians to help support the force, and temporarily bring Alameda County sheriff's deputies into Oakland - primarily to make stops.

"I don't doubt there's a relationship between our increase in crime and our decrease in arrests and stops," Schaaf said. "We're in survival mode, and we need to get out of it yesterday."